User blog:Turambar1/Volume 2 English Translation
I got my copy of the YenPress translation on Volume 2 today, so I thought I would do what I did with Volume 1 and discuss changes. First I'll talk a little about the book itself. It seems to be of a little better quality than Volume 1. It looks like a bit more effort went into putting it together whereas the first volume (my copy anyway) was sloppy and the alignment was a bit off. The paper and ink quality still isn't very good though. Just as Volume 1, it has no removable cover, and the original inner front cover is added as the first page. Other than that, everything is there that should be, including the color pages and the weapons appendix. The content and quality of the translation seems to have improved from the first volume. There are still a lot of English idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms, but most aren't as awkward or outdated as before. I think there actually may have been one or two literal translations of Japanese sayings left in. Some of the colloquialisms, or more specifically slangisms, used really bothered me. The speech of some characters (namely Takashi) was much more slangy this time. It really seemed unnatural and uncharacteristic, and it didn't seem to me to be commonly used by high school students in the present, though it's been a few years since I've been around high school students, so I'm not really sure. Here's a list of what changed in this volume. The old names and terms are on the left and the new ones on the right, and the bolded term is what I think we should use from now on. Please leave a comment if you think I chose the wrong one or if I missed any. If you can read Japanese, I would appreciate if you could confirm my decisions. *Special Defense Force > Self-Defense Force - They corrected this from the first volume. *'First Squadron Chief' > Platoon I Sniper/Senior Policewoman - I'm not sure about this one. If someone can figure out the more literal translation of the two, that would be great. *'East Police Station' > Eastern Police Station - "East" sounds more specific to me. *Sempai > Senpai - This one was also corrected from the first volume. *'Onii-chan' > Mister - What Alice calls Takashi. *'2million, 10million' > 20million, 100million - (ch6, p2) I think the first values are right, but I'll need someone who can read Japanese to confirm. *'Springfield M1A1 Super Match' > Super Mach - I'm almost positive the name translates to the former. *'Blackwater' > Black Hawks - The military group Kohta trained with. My guess for the change is copyright issues. *'Killer's Disease' > Murderer Syndrome - "Syndrome" doesn't sound like the correct term to use. *'Nightstick' > Baton - I know "baton" is a more formal name for the weapon, but I'm pretty sure the literal translation is "nightstick." *'Armalite AR-10 Special' > Knight's SR-25 Type Armalite AR-10 V - The latter is probably the technical term for the gun, but the former is simpler and used more often I think. *'Humvee' > Hummer - It's a military vehicle not a mass-market SUV. This was a poor decision. Category:Blog posts